This might sound horrific to ship modelers but has anyone ever tried to make a spur (brass/ steel/ plastic?) and tried to ram a model ship (not others' but one made just for the ramming) with their Nautilus just like in the movie? I would like to recreate one of thoses scenes where you could capture the sub at waterline and watching it approach the ship. Would like to try this one day if I ever get the chance. Anyone ever tried this?

280 meters.... and she's still in one piece! -Jurgen Prochnow, Das Boot.

Well that's an idea I'm seriously considering. I just need to make a set of metal rakers to fit on top of the fiberglass ones. I had the four ft. Nautilus out today. I was testing a way to make an impressive bow wave but found out I need to adjust the waterline. I'll take the sub out tomorrow and try again. If it works and I get some good video I'll post. You've got to have that impressive bow wave/effect first before ripping a ship apart.

What I was thinking is this: I'd keep my Nautilus stock. It works well and I don't want to mess with it. I'd then building an appropriate target, say the Abraham Lincoln, complete with ballast system (that's the key!) AND pyrotechnics (smoke and flare, etc...

I'd start the run with the Nautilus surfaced, running for the ship at full throttle. Blow the tanks and let her submerge slowly until the "eyes" are just visible. At about six feet out... full dive on the planes. This is realistic, as the Nautilus should be taking the bottom out of the boat, not smashing directly into her sides.

What needs to happen is that the Nautilus will clear the ship's keel without hitting her. Just when she's underneath, blow the Lincoln's ballast tanks, set off the smoke and flares, and watch her sink. You could even add a spring-loaded paddle underneath her to 'flip' at the moment of impact to get the shock.

Unless you film the entire sequence in slow-mo, I think actually ramming the Lincoln would look fakey and non-scale, and you'd still need the pyrotechnics for the full effect.

Maybe when I get more time (like.... fifty years from now), I'll do up a 1:32 Abraham Lincoln model and recreate the scene.

Anybody with a better schedule be interested in doing up the Lincoln? We could hook up and play out the entire sequence on film!

Sounds cool! Maybe you could use the same radio to control both the sub and the ship I think it would be easier to control it that way. Which brings me to the second part of the topic: if we could get a recreation of the ramming sequence, we have to try the squid! Any ideas?

280 meters.... and she's still in one piece! -Jurgen Prochnow, Das Boot.

I made a bowwave device and have been testing it for two days and have come to realize that the only way you could realistically duplicate the Disney Nautilus bowwave effect is to duplicate what Disney did. In other words I would need to put a strong string on the 4 ft. sub and have it pulled through the water at a very fast rate, faster than the sub could generate itself. The other way would be to put exceptionally large pumps and batteries in the sub such that it would only have room for forward. This might work. For the time being however I'm suspending effort on this bowwave thing. It might work better on the 7 ft. sub but right now I'm tired of messing with it. I did take some video however trying to capture the bowwave. You can see from the video that the small sub has some potential for a bowwave effect but I don't think it could ever match the special effect Disney made. The video takes a while to load and might run better second time.

After thinking about this further I have to agree with Bob that there is no reason to risk damage to the Nautilus. The key to re-creating this scene would be to make a trick exploding ship. As Bob suggests a model, correctly scaled, of say the Abraham Lincoln designed to simulate an explosion. One trigger or spring-loaded mechanism such as a mousetrap could release other spring-loaded sections of the ship so that it would simulate an attack by the Nautilus. This one trigger could either be RC controlled or there could be a lever below the ship which the Nautilus moves slightly. To make it list for example a weight in the ship's hull could be tied by fishing line to the side of the boat. A bottom trapdoor would open releasing the weight, which would be tied to the side of the boat and out of sight. This would then make the boat list. At the same time the ship would fill to a certain water level The masts and other portions of the ship could likewise break off or fall apart. As an exaggeration the ship could even split in half altogether. All these pieces should be able to be put back together quickly so that it could be taped or filmed again from a different angle. All you need is one or two good shots of the Nautilus going under the ship. Then there could be several shots of the ship breaking apart from different angles. So the real key to this I think is making the trick Abraham Lincoln. Now I don't know how you would simulate pyrotechnics but that could probably be done too. I know there are enough ingenious people out there that could do this.

Well I haven't given up I still have something else to try. As Pat mentioned before, a water cannon was also used in the original. The Jet Nautilus does have, coincidentally a water cannon of sorts but it is used to direct the sub down. I think I could tap off of this Jet and maybe use three separate hoses on either side of the Raker. I wish there were a picture of the water cannon on the original 22 footer. Well it's something to try but I suspect that it still would need to be pulled, maybe not.

Ahhhhh the famous water cannon If my Nautilus sails with no-flaws, I might consider modifying the wheelhouse, right now, it has squared look, if I want it to have the effect of water spreading out on both sides of the wheelhouse, modifications have to be made. For a shark shaped sub, I am look for a unique way of ramming a ship, maybe cutting through the ship's hull with the dorsal fin, maybe......... In the book, the N's wheelhouse could retract, including everything on the deck. If I ever get to build a larger version of the sub in the future, that's something I want to include, and also closing the of the salon windows, and.......

280 meters.... and she's still in one piece! -Jurgen Prochnow, Das Boot.

I don't want to sound too optimistic or exuberant, and I wouldn't post this unless I think it would work. But I've made a water cannon for the 4 ft sub and have tested it in my test tank. It seems to work great, maybe too good. I really won't know until I actually run it at my test pond. If it works I'll post video.

The water cannon seems to work. I couldn't make a good video because my helper didn't make it to the test pond today. It's difficult to run the submarine run the video camera and run the water cannon all at the same time. Also correct water level needs to be maintained. I didn't get much to make a decent video and one side of the water cannon clogged up. But this picture, a video capture, should give you an idea of how it could look.

In the pic of the 22-footer, we can see the canon nozzels are way forward of the wheelhouse viewports; close to the ram, actually, and angled back to project their stream at the area of the front of the naviform foredeck and the leading edges of the wheelhouse. Presumably, the distance and depth at which the water stream is projected have something to do with the overall effect.

In the pictures, yours looks like it's shooting water up and out like a fireboat. That might be because it's not deep enough; you'd know more about that than I. Maybe it will look right when you're buddy is working the camera and you can make her run lights-awash. But I'm thinking if you move the nozzels foreward and down, and aim them up and back, you'll have better luck.

In any event, I think you've got a good chance of getting it working right before long, and look forward to seeing more pics.

When it comes to scale wakes and bow waves, we need to use the formulae developed by Froude in his theories about Corresponding Speed. To produce a realistic wave, the model's corresponding speed must be faster than what actual linear scale speed would be. (There's a difference between the two many people don't recognize.) The different velocities are the result of variables in physics: the model is smaller, but the water molecules are not.

When I put the NAUITLUS MINISUB back into the water, she'll be using a bigger motor with about double the thrust of the one I had when I first operated the boat; but that's only calculated to give me a couple knots increase in speed, actually. I don't know what kind of wave we'll generate, but we'll see.

Of course, I could always hook a tow cable to the speedometer cutout in the keel, pull it with a good fast boat, and take pictures of that.

Pat

VBR,

Pat

VULCANIA SUBMARINE: Home of the Nautilus Minisub and 20,000 Leagues Diving Suits

Pat your right about it looking like a fireboat. At this point I was only interested in whether the concept of a miniature water cannon on a 4 ft. sub was viable and would even work. It does and as you suggest I'm thinking about modifications, which I'll have done today. I also have some ideas about a bowwave splitter added to the water cannon to accomplish both effects, a split bowwave and flowing water gushing back and over the sub. I think I've seen enough from these preliminary tests to make modifications and pursue this further before I give up altogether. Since this is fun and not a major modification to the sub just an add-on it's easy to do, to see how close I can come to duplicate that famous opening scene. If this works then maybe nighttime with lights O boy! Having some fun now.